Online Takeover
by tinylexie
Summary: Hermione has several problems with her father-in-law using her laptop.
**Author's Note** **: This is very AU so the characters are likely to be a little OCC. However, I wanted to write a little bit of humor, so this story is nothing to be taken too seriously. Also, I truly believe that if he was to ever give it a chance, Lucius really would love the online world.**

* * *

"I'm about ready to kill your father."

"What has he done now?" Draco asked, the amusement in his voice clear as he looked up from his brand new, top-of-the-line tablet. By now he was more than use to the love/hate relationship between his wife and father.

Hermione Malfoy, however, did not share any of her husband's amusement over what she thought was a serious situation. The situation, after all, tended to be serious whenever it involved her father-in-law.

"Your father is holding my laptop hostage again," Hermione hissed.

"Well, you did want him and Mother to embrace some of the Muggle ways of living," Draco replied, failing to see the problem. "Shouldn't he wanting to use your laptop be a good thing then?"

"That's not the problem," Hermione snapped. "The first problem is that he refuses to let me use my own laptop. Like I said, he's holding it hostage _again_."

"I can always buy you another laptop," Draco responded.

"That won't take care of the second problem. That won't do anything to stop the types of things that your father does on the Internet."

"He's not doing anything illegal, is he?" Draco asked, a hint of worry creeping into his voice for the first time.

Hermione looked at her husband as if he was a small child. "This is your father we're talking about, Draco. Of course he's doing something illegal. The only thing that I know for sure is that he has started a Harry Potter Sucks online fan club."

"Really?" Draco grinned. "I may have to check that out. What's the website?"

If Hermione's glare could kill, Draco would have been dead right where he was sitting.

"All right, all right, I'll go talk to him," Draco spoke in what he hoped was a soothing voice. He definitely didn't want to witness yet another epic battle between his wife and father. Oh, they never did anything to truly hurt each other, but the house always ended up looking like a disaster area as soon as it was all over.

* * *

Draco left his tablet on the couch where he had been sitting and walked into the room where Hermione kept her laptop on her at-home work desk. He immediately spotted his father sitting in front of it.

"Hi, Dad," Draco greeted in a somewhat nervous voice. Even though he would never admit it out loud, his father still somewhat intimidated him.

Lucius Malfoy turned his head just enough to look at his son.

"What do you want, Draco? Your wife was in here just a few minutes ago, and I'm rather busy."

"With what?" Draco asked in what he hoped was a casual voice.

"With hacking," Lucius said bluntly.

For several moments, Draco just starred at his father in stunned silence. For one thing, it was not like Lucius to ever give a straight answer. For another thing, and more importantly to someone like Hermione, Lucius had just admitted to doing something illegal on her laptop.

"But that's illegal, Father," Draco finally managed to sputter out. "You can get arrested for hacking."

"Not if they can't trace it back to me," Lucius replied smoothly. "Besides, who would ever believe that someone like me would ever be caught dead using a Muggle device? I'm a known Pureblood bigot, remember?"

"The police have ways of tracking the location of the laptop being used for hacking," Draco returned.

He didn't know if that was really true, but it sounded good to him. Besides, he didn't want to risk the police possibly arresting Hermione just because the hacking had been done on her laptop.

"If that happens, your wife will be just fine," Lucius spoke as if reading his son's mind. "No one would ever believe that a Little Miss Perfect like Hermione would ever do something as horrible as hacking. That being said, why did she marry you again?"

"Because deep down inside me she saw a tender heart that just needed a little bit of love and understanding," Draco responded. "But enough of that for now. I'm not going to allow you to get us off-topic like you usually do. You have to stop hacking, Father. It's illegal, and you could get into a lot of trouble if you get caught."

"That's not going to happen," Lucius smirked. "I've deposited a nice little sum of money into the bank accounts of several important people that hold a lot of legal authority."

Draco groaned. It was clear that in at least some ways his father was never going to change. "Just please tell me that you did not steal this bribe money."

"No, most of it was my money," Lucius replied.

" _Most_ of it?"

Lucius just grinned at his son in answer.

"I give up," Draco said. "I'm going to just buy Hermione another laptop, and you can keep that one to use for all your grand plans of world domination."

"To show my appreciation for those words of kindness, you can be fourth-in-command when I do finally take over the world," Lucius returned.

"Fourth? Why fourth?"

"Ah, that's the Malfoy spirit," Lucius said with amusement. "And to answer your question, I will be first-in-command, followed by your mother, then by Hermione, and then finally by you. Ladies first, Draco. That's the way of a gentleman. And the only reason why I'm going to be first-in-command is because I will make sure to buy both your mother and your wife very nice, expensive gifts on Amazon before I officially take over."

Draco just looked at his father in disbelief. His father the gentleman. His father the master criminal.

 _Some things will never change,_ Draco couldn't help thinking.

"Is there anything else you need to talk to me about?" Lucius pressed. "Like I said earlier, I'm rather busy. It's harder than you might think to balance buying your mother an exceptional birthday present with hacking and bribing the right people."

"No," Draco said. "I'll leave trying to change you for the better to Hermione."

"I know how to hack using _Muggle_ methods," Lucius replied. "What else could she possibly want from me?"

"I give up," Draco groaned, turning to leave, "and I'm going to talk to Hermione about giving up as well."

* * *

Lucius turned back to his daughter-in-law's laptop as soon as his son had walked out the room. He clicked on the tab where he had opened earlier his Facebook account, which he had of course set up using a false name, a false profile picture, and false background information. One could never be too careful online.

 _My worst fear has just happened,_ he typed. _My own son has decided to abandon me to whatever cruel fate may befall me in the future._

It did not take long before Lucius started to receive replies full of sympathy along with words of anger towards his clearly ungrateful brat of a son.

Even online Lucius Malfoy was a natural at being a manipulative charmer.


End file.
